Customer Service In The Age Of Social Media. Yesterday I spoke with City News‘ Kris Reyes about the challenges businesses face in customer service in the age of social media.
In Toronto we’ve seen numerous recent instances of “citizen journalism” highlighting problems at the TTC – a TwitPic of a TTC worker sleeping; a video of a bus driver’s unscheduled coffee break in the middle of a route and finally a perhaps ill-advised Facebook page set up by some TTC staff. It’s a tough time to work in a customer-facing job. It just takes one slip-up and, if you’re unlucky, you can find yourself all over the news – online and offline. This is especially the case if you work for a publicly-funded organization.
I offered three tips for people and organizations to think about: Organizations need to prepare their employees to work in this kind of environment. Best Buy’s attitude on social media. Posterous - The place to post everything. Just email us. Dead simple blog by email. 5 Tips for Dealing with Complaints on Twitter. Megan Berry is Marketing Manager for Klout, the standard for online influence.
She also blogs at The Huffington Post and Brazen Careerist. You can follow her on Twitter at @meganberry. Every business, blogger, and the rest of us on social media have experienced it: someone just called you out on Twitter or in a blog. It’s all too easy to get frustrated and respond with something that will just make the situation worse (“I’ll give you a refund right away... oh wait, you didn’t actually pay for this!”) Or to take it personally and get upset. While there is no magic formula for dealing with complaints in social media, I do have a few tips that have helped me. 1. I can’t tell you how many complaints I’ve seen turned around with a quick reply.
Of course, this assumes you are actually paying attention. 2. When someone has a legitimate complaint, I’ve found one of the most effective things to do is reach out from your personal account. 3. A shel of my former self: Comments. Healthcare Marketing: Are We Training Unhappy Customers/Patients to Whine on the Web? « MARKETING YOUR HOSPITAL. Unhappy customers are often finding that using social media sites to complain gets faster and better results than ordinary customer service venues.
A disgruntled JetBlue customer was slapped with a $50 fee for checking a box containing a fold-up bicycle, clothes and some cheese. The box met the height and weight requirements for free baggage but JetBlue’s policy for checking a bicycle called for a $50 fee. The angry customer called the airline’s customer service center but was repeatedly told the fee was company policy and there were no exceptions. But then the customer went online to social media sites and complained. It was soon on Twitter and within three days JetBlue called the cyclist to tell him his $50 charged had been reversed.
In the past, a customer complaint was handled usually with a phone call or maybe by email and the matter in question was handled either satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily. Michael Bush addressed this issue in an article in Ad Age. No more excuses: top customer service podcasts - Spoken Communications. Don't have time to read blogs?
Twitter to fire-hosey for you? You want to keep up with customer service methods and customer experience management but don't have time. This is the no-more-excuses list: the best podcasts on CEM and customer service. It's audio, so you you can listen while walking the dog (I listen on the exercise bike). Why Complaining Customers Can Be Good For Your Business. Susan Payton is the President of Egg Marketing & Public Relations, an Internet marketing firm. She blogs at The Marketing Eggspert Blog. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing. Download her newest e-book, "Content is Queen: How Article & Blog Writing Will Increase Your Sales.
" Companies love positive feedback. They share it on Twitter, post it on their website and use it as marketing fodder. Rather than try to sweep these unhappy customers under the rug, look at them as a challenge and an opportunity to improve your brand and leverage them for some publicity. Practical Travel - Having a Travel Problem? Share It on Twitter. That might explain why some customers prefer Twittering over contacting customer service directly.
“Their reaction time is speedier than being put on hold,” said Sydney Owen, 24, a public relations intern from Chicago who recently tweeted about a Southwest boarding pass she had misplaced and received a nearly immediate response from the airline. The immediacy of Twitter is also what appealed to Tony Haile, 32, the general manager of Chartbeat, a Web analytics site in New York City. When he noticed that the in-flight movies on Virgin America’s New York-San Francisco route hadn’t changed in several weeks, he tweeted, “How many months have to go by before Virgin America change their movies.” What happened next, Mr.
Haile said, “absolutely gobsmacked me.” “I never ever had that level of customer service before,” Mr. HOW TO: Use Twitter for Customer Service. Customer service can evoke some serious misgivings or negative emotions.
Although customer support is designed to help the consumer, the pain of waiting for a phone representative and the impersonal emails can cause more damage than good for a brand. People are turned off by the term and companies have begun to use different terminology to describe their efforts.